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Economy
March 2006, a flashback
A look at what happened in North Asian businesses, three years to this day.
The Japanese company, already under investigation for the alleged sale of helicopters to Poly Technologies, a firm linked to the People’s Liberation Arm of China, for military uses, is now suspected of selling an aircraft to another firm affiliated to the Chinese military.
January 2006
Latest figures from Toyota showed that the sale of Lexus, which was introduced in the Japanese market for the first time in August, has far exceeded expectations. A total of 4,600 units of the GS and SC models were sold in that month, three times higher than projected.
November 2008
Tokyo Marine Holdings, Japan’s largest non-life insurer by sales, is buying Philadelphia Consolidated Holdings, an American non-life insurer, for US$4.7 billion.
Zhang Sheng Yu, 39, has become the latest of Chinese listed company CEOs to suffer an early death. The head of the venerable pharmacy chain Tong Reng Tang, listed in Shanghai, died of a sudden heart attack on July 22.
Loan shark days The credit crunch has hit China so badly that some smaller companies and individuals are borrowing money at 600% per month, according to local media.
August 2008
Australia will make a decision "in a few months" on whether Sinosteel Corp can take a stake in Murchison Metals, after Sinosteel made a A$1.36 billion (US$1.3 billion) bid for Murchison’s rival, Midwest Corp.
Demand for prime office space in Japan has shown signs of waning as foreign financial institutions hold back expansion plans in the face of the fallout from the subprime crisis.
Video game winner Almost written off two years ago, Nintendo has captured the top spot in Japan for "Innovation in Responding to Customer Needs" with its Wii in the Wall Street Journal Asia’s latest Asia 200 survey of readers.
July 2008
Wedding of the year?
This is the type of high-profile romance Hong Kong tabloids revel in. It is also the worst kind of relationship for eager relatives wanting to gain from the union – an on-and-off-and-then-on-and-maybe-off-again one.
The billion-yuan question: are China and Disney coming together to build a theme park in Shanghai?
Some of the local villagers simply can't wait for the government to evict them from their homes. "Next June," one predicted optimistically.
Such is the pragmatism that exists sometimes in the Chinese psyche. Never mind the ancestral home, think of the compensation that will come from the state. Others are looking to the day when the arrival of a Disneyland in the Pudong area will skyrocket the value of their properties by quite a few-fold.
Are they counting the chickens in their backyard before they are even hatched? Shanghai has been watching the possible deal since its then-mayor Zhu Rongji visited the Magic Kingdom in 1990 with the intention of setting up a match. Eighteen years have passed, Zhu has added "Governor, Central Bank", "Vice Premier, China" and "Prime Minister of China" to his resume, and still, no deal.
Singapore and Hong Kong
In the long running pissing match between Singapore and Hong Kong, the latter seems to have won the latest round. Well, sort of.
Levin Zhu Yunlai and Morgan Stanley
When John Mack rejoined Morgan Stanley as chairman and CEO in 2005, one of the biggest assets of the Wall Street super-investment bank was a man called Levin Zhu Yunlai. Now the two are barely on speaking terms.
Sibling rivalry
The "unofficial official" ruling that prevents smaller Chinese companies from listing in Hong Kong is good news for its "sister" exchanges.
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has made a bad mistake: it forgot to watch its back. Now it's been knifed by its two "sister" exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
HKSE has never really considered the mainland exchanges to be anything but pitiful little siblings that needed the occasional handout. It has focused most of its resources on fighting with worthier counterparts in Singapore, London and New York for new listings, especially those from China.
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Another Point
An imaginary factual blog of General David Petraeus, Commander, United States Central Command